


The Great Pumpkin Race

by serendipityxxi



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pumpkins, Snark, squashbuckling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8345587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: Jordan McKee has a nice day for once, damnit!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabbitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabbitt/gifts).



> All tense shifts are mine! My beta tried her hardest to get me to stick to one. I apologize for any lapses.
> 
> With that said - Rabbitt, I always enjoy your thoughts on Jordan and Riley on tumblr. I hope this fic lives up to what you'd have liked to have seen of them.

If you asked Jordan McKee what would count as a good day for her she’d tell you it was a day when everybody left her alone. No asshole tried to get grabby when she did her job. Her coworkers were on time to relieve her at the end of her shift. Vince didn’t call and ask her to do one of his little favors that were getting real old. Jordan would get to go to work, come home, relax in a bath. Maybe she’d watch some tv or a movie she’d never seen would be on cable and she’d get to enjoy it in uninterrupted quiet.

Unfortunately for Jordan the universe did not often take into consideration what she wanted.

Today for instance started with a panicked phone call ten minutes before her alarm was supposed to go off. She’d worked the late shift last night and was on the early shift this morning so those ten minutes were worth their weight in gold.

She considered not answering her phone entirely but it wasn’t Vince and it wasn’t Dwight- it was Riley’s number on her caller ID. Riley Morgan was relatively new to the Guard, one of Jordan’s summer recruits. Riley was sweet faced and had such a sunny disposition you’d never believe she could turn people to stone when her Trouble was triggered. Jordan had gotten stuck with Riley on a few stakeouts early in the summer and Riley had decided she and Jordan were friends after that. Jordan had done absolutely nothing to encourage this misconception. Still, Riley wouldn’t call this early if it wasn’t important and if she was in trouble she wasn’t the sort who could get herself out of it alone. She was sort of sweet and helpless- like a lab puppy. It should be annoying and it wasn’t that Jordan was her friend or anything, but she couldn’t leave her to fend for herself.

With a much put upon sigh Jordan pressed answer and put the phone to her ear.

She yanked it back a moment later as Riley’s high pitched babbling about pumpkins and boats reached her ear. With a groan Jordan pulled the pillow out from under her head to cover her face.

“No, I’m listening,” she assured Riley, and wished like hell she hadn’t answered her phone.

Half an hour later, she’d found someone to cover her shift and was headed to Hastings Dock in considerably aggravated spirits. Riley was in no immediate physical danger. Jordan should have just told her to find someone else to help out.

When Jordan parked and got out the dock was covered in the usual madness that took over Haven once the leaves started to change. The problem wasn’t the trees which were a gorgeous riot of color, reflecting in the stillness of the bay. The problem wasn’t that the air was crisp like that first bite of an apple. It was in fact a nice day out with the sun on the water keeping it from being too cold. The problem was the pumpkins. There were pumpkins in piles and pumpkins in stacks. Orange and white and green pumpkins. Big, small and king sized pumpkins. Pumpkins on hay bales, pumpkins on tables, pumpkins on wheels and dollies. Just pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere the eye could see. Jordan wasn’t sure what she hated more – the taste of pumpkin or the scent. Even worse there were a full dozen enormous gourds sitting in the parking lot waiting to be hoisted into the water.

Jordan passed behind Audrey Parker who was on the phone and didn’t notice her. “Nathan, you’re never going to guess the Trouble we’ve got down at Hastings Dock,” she said sounding positively gleeful.

Jordan rolled her eyes. Of course the city girl thought this was a Trouble.

Jordan couldn’t hold back the grin as “tell me you didn’t just use the term ‘squashbuckler’,” followed her down the sidewalk.  Knowing Nathan he probably said it without a hint of sarcasm either. She could just picture his face all _What do you mean it’s a silly name? It’s what it’s called._

The squashbuckler race was the main attraction on today’s list of inane pumpkin themed events. Half the town showed up to watch idiots with no sense of smell race enormous pumpkins across the bay. Every year someone almost drowned. Every year someone’s pumpkin sunk. And still they turned out. Every year. Claire once told her that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that didn’t sound like Haven well...

Green gingham tablecloths and the cheerful orange sign bearing the words "Haven Pumpkinfest" flapped obnoxiously in the breeze. Riley was at the far end of the parking lot, looking distraught. Her pumpkin boat was halfway out of the bed of the pickup truck, overbalanced on the dolly, and Jordan wondered how in the hell Riley managed to get the damn thing in the truck anyway. Riley was leaning all her weight on the boat, holding it in place.

“What are you doing?” Jordan demanded.

“Jordan!” Riley exclaimed. Her face lit up and Jordan was not in the least bit pleased by that. She wasn’t. They weren't friends. It wasn't nice having someone actually be _happy_ to see her. She was in fact annoyed that Riley got her out of bed and down to this chilly dock before eight in the damn morning.

“Why didn’t you call Dwight?” Jordan really wanted to know. He would be a much more likely candidate because, well, he was bigger, burlier and would probably be able to lift many, many pounds of pumpkin with ease. Unless Riley wanted her pumpkin tazed or snarked at Jordan couldn’t see how she was going to be helpful.

Riley made a face. “Dwight doesn’t do the regatta anymore,” she said. Jordan’s expression must have matched the “so?” that flashed through her mind because Riley added “too many happy families,” with a sad little frown.

It took Jordan a moment and then she remembered Lizzie. _Oh._

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Riley made a sympathetic face.

The silence was awkward for a long moment.

“So… the boat?” Jordan asked because all this feeling sorry for someone else was way more than she signed up for this morning.

“I need you to help me slide the straps back into place on this side so I can lift it with the winch,” Riley explained.

So that’s what they did. Twenty sweaty, back-breaking minutes later the pumpkin-boat, which was probably big enough to qualify as a hot tub, was seated on the dolly and Jordan was sure she’d need at least three more showers today to get the stench off.

And then Riley turned those sad doe eyes on her again and said “Can you help me get it over to the water?”

“Sure,” Jordan shrugged, she already reeked anyway.  “Aren’t you supposed to have a partner in all this?” she asked.

“My brother, Josh. He had a night terror that turned into a panic attack when he woke up. His bed, night stand and cellphone were all stone when I got over there to pick him up.”

“So he wasn’t up for dealing with the Haven Circus?” Jordan filled in.

Riley nodded with a tight little shrug, all but radiating disappointment.

Jordan bent to adjust the strap on her side. She remembered how jealous she’d been when she’d learned of Riley’s Trouble, it wasn’t permanently on, only turned on in life or death situations. And how many of those did she really run into? But there was no way of turning someone back from stone. The customer who’d cornered Riley outside the Gull and triggered her Trouble had been quietly cleaned up by Dwight and his team. Jordan’s Trouble might never turn off but she’d yet to kill anyone with it. She’d come close with the bastard, if it hadn’t been for Claire well… but still.

Jordan looked up from adjusting the strap to see Riley’s hopeful face.

Jordan blanched. “No.” She said it politely, firmly. There was no arguing with a no like that.

Riley eyes widened in a passable approximation of someone who had no idea what the other person was talking about.

“What?” she asked.

Jordan scowled.

“No,” she repeated.

“Jordan-”

“The race isn’t until two, there’s the weigh in and the inspection and all that nonsense before then. I am not hanging around here all day, Riley. I’m going home and going to shower off all this pumpkin stink and then I am going to spend the rest of the day-”

“Of course,” Riley rushed to interrupt. “I wouldn’t ask you to stick around all day!”

Somehow, Jordan ended up spending the morning at the bumpkin festival.

They drove the golf cart the dolly was attached to over to the water, passing an army of grizzled Haven fishermen who could just as easily have helped Riley. But no, Riley couldn’t have asked them. She had to call Jordan.

Then she couldn’t leave Riley to get the dumb thing onto the scale at the weigh in by herself. And when they got there Barry Llewelyn was doing the inspections and Jordan knew for a fact he was friends with Vince so she stuck around to glower menacingly at Barry, making sure he didn’t do anything to discount Riley’s pumpkin. And she couldn’t leave Riley to launch the damn boat on her own either.

It made a big splash and for a moment Jordan hoped passionately, uncharitably, that it would sink. But it didn’t, it settled quickly, bobbing cheerfully up and down. Riley had painted her pumpkin like a sunflower with the opening for the rider the center of the flower. The bright yellow petals outlined and detailed with black swaths of spray paint and the vibrant orange of the pumpkin were a pretty contrast against the dark blue water off the dock.

The kiddie pumpkin races took place while they were waiting for Riley’s boat to be inspected. Head-sized pumpkins with wheels hammered in raced down an incline eight at a time painted and decorated like mice and firetrucks, snowmen and clown fish. The snowman had splattered on reaching the end of the ramp, head going flying off its body. Jordan had restrained herself from snickering only because Riley had shot her a warning glare. She put on a faux innocent look that made Riley laugh. The winning pumpkin of the races had been painted blue and kitted out like Cinderella’s carriage. Jordan had been reluctantly charmed when she glimpsed it from the other side of the lot.

The pumpkin painting competition was judged while they were in line for an official race number. Riley mentioned, with a pathetic attempt at casual, that Nathan had won last year. Jordan studiously did not comment. This year a woman in her late-twenties that Jordan didn’t recognize took the first prize with a seascape of a lighthouse with three gulls outlined in black, painted on a pumpkin as big as a barrel . Typical, Jordan thought with an eyeroll. She did not wonder what Nathan had painted last year.

By the time they got all that done it was almost eleven. While everyone went nuts over the pie eating competition Riley bought Jordan lunch, hot dogs with coleslaw and apple tartlets from Rosemary’s stall. Jordan couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hotdog. They sat off by themselves at the furthest picnic table, the breeze was cool off the water but they were warm in the bright fall sunshine. Leaves rustled across the blacktop, adding a scratchy counterpoint to the cheers of the crowd. Jordan put her sunglasses on and let Riley do the talking. She had all the good gossip as the Gull was more popular than the Gun N Rose.

“How can you work for Crocker?” Jordan demanded, during a lull in their conversation, for what felt like the umpteenth time in their acquaintanceship.

“He’s a good boss,” Riley answered without looking at her. She waved to someone in the crowd, her long brown pony tail flicking over her shoulder, the sun picking out red highlights in her dark hair.

Jordan snorted. “Sure, until he decides to end your Trouble.”

“He’s not like that, Jordan,” Riley defended. “He’s a good guy. He’s funny and he understands you can’t always be ‘on’ even if you’ve got to be at work.”

Jordan rolled her eyes but let the subject drop, Riley sounded genuinely upset. Besides Vince and Dave had just shown up, the obnoxious song of the horn of their van blaring across the dock.

“Dwight told me they cheat and win the damn boat race every year the Troubles are active,” she told Riley, nodding to the Teagues’ van.

“What?” Riley looked scandalized, dropping her hotdog back into the tray. “How?”

“They know a guy with a green thumb Trouble,” Jordan explained.

 _“It’s not cheating if you’re blessed with superior craftsmanship and materials,”_ Dave would argue. She could hear the little troll in her head saying it. Clearly she needed to spend less time with the Teagues in general.

“Joke’s on them,” Riley groused, “a bigger pumpkin doesn’t necessarily mean a better boat.”

Jordan watched Dave wave to the crowd like a damn celebrity.

“We’re going to go sabotage their boat,” she told Riley decisively. Riley’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open like a friggin Disney character.

“We can’t do that!” she protested.

Jordan set down her hotdog and wiped her hands. “We can try!” she announced, setting off toward the water. She was sure there was a manic glint in her eye but she didn’t care.

“Jordan!” Riley grabbed the back of her jacket, yanking her back, making Jordan whirl her eyes wide now in fright.

“Did I get you?” she demanded of Riley who looked scared herself but she wasn’t writhing in pain on the ground.

“N-no. I only grabbed your jacket…”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she hissed at Riley gone past fear into angry now. “Don’t ever do that again!” She knew she was overreacting, her hands itched to reach out and shake Riley’s shoulders but she didn’t dare.

Riley drew back. “I’m- I’m sorry, okay?” she said and Jordan felt ridiculous.

“It’s just… it’s not safe,” she finished lamely.

Riley bobbed her head. “Sure, yeah, got it.”

They stood there for a long moment in awkward silence, looking everywhere but at each other. Jordan had just made up her mind to tell Riley she was going home when Riley’s expression turned mischievous. “Okay, so how are we going to sabotage their boat?” she asked.

Jordan smiled, she couldn’t help it.  

\--

Sabotaging a pumpkin boat was a lot trickier than one would imagine. Cutting through the hull would require a chainsaw or at the very least a power tool of some kind, Riley was adamant about that. Jordan could see where she was coming from, memories of carving pumpkins as a kid reminded her how difficult it was to get through the sides of those things. Jordan was about to admit she hadn’t a clue how to sabotage the boat since punching a few holes in it was out of the question when Riley had a brainstorm.

Vince and Dave’s pumpkin was enormous, it had to be if it was going to hold the two of them. Most of the other pumpkins would only carry one rider. They’d added a prow out of plywood, a tiller and rudder and painted the whole thing to look like it’d been covered in newspaper.  A newspaper boat. Cute. Complete with Haven Herald flag flying from the prow. If they'd had a one person boat they wouldn’t have needed a tiller as there would’ve been no one to steer and row at the same time. But with Vince rowing and Dave steering they had need for a rudder which was about to become their downfall.

With the flags flying and the crowd roaring over the pumpkin chunkin event it was easy enough to wander nonchalantly on down the dock where the boats were moored without raising suspicion. A lot of people had come out to see the seedy fleet already. They were certainly a sight to behold.

There was a boat painted and embellished to look like a turtle. “Old man Martin’s boat,” Riley told her. “And the giant rubber ducky belongs to his son in law Leo D’Amato.” Jordan boggled but sure enough there was a pumpkin painted bright yellow with a duck head and tail attached.

Someone had made a red Angry Bird pumpkin boat, the eyes glowered out just above the waterline.

“Look, it’s you,” Riley teased.

“I don’t wear that much eyeliner,” Jordan deadpanned and Riley cracked up.

There was a dark green loch ness pumpkin complete with long Nessie neck and head. There was a pumpkin boat outfitted with shark teeth, even one that had a weird yellow ring around the opening that left Jordan guessing – was it supposed to be a donut without sprinkles? She almost laughed when she read the name “the hunny pot”. Instead she rolled her eyes pointedly at Riley who smiled serenely about the whole thing. She hoped fervently that the owner had plans to wear pants with his red t-shirt. This was Haven though...

Then they were at the Teagues’ boat. Jordan glanced around but no one was nearby. The race officials were all staring at the pumpkin chunkin event. There were a few guys from the Guard involved that she recognized. Big, tall, beefy Mainers chucking pumpkins as far as they could, the crowd roaring with each splat.

“I had no idea people could be this bored with all the technology currently available to them,” Jordan drawled.

Riley put out a hand as if to shove her in response but pulled it back at the last moment.

She gave Jordan a wry smile instead.

Jordan nodded briefly in return before she bent to study the rudder of the Teagues monstrosity. It was a huge pumpkin. The rudder looked pretty standard though and in moments it was jammed. Then she and Riley were strolling, a little swifter than before, down the docks and away.

By the time they hit the parking lot the chunkin event was on to its grand finale. The roar of the crowd as a twelve hundred pound pumpkin was lifted to the top of a hundred foot crane and then dropped on an old car from the scrapyard perfectly covered Riley’s giggles and oh hell, Jordan was laughing too, so hard there were tears in her eyes. She didn’t think she’d laughed this hard since before her Trouble turned on. They collapsed onto their bench and tried to compose themselves but every time she thought she’d done it, she caught Riley’s gaze and burst into laughter again. It felt good and also weird. Her stomach hurt and her throat was getting scratchy but she just couldn’t stop.

“I should feel bad,” Riley protested.

“Vince is a dick,” Jordan reassured her.

“Dave is a creeper, too,” Riley admitted, like she was sharing a secret.

Jordan snorted. She knows. “I’d be less annoyed with them if they weren’t so damn nosy. They act like everything is their business!”

“Yes!” Riley agreed. “I was talking to Joey from the Guard, you know Joey right?” she continued at Jordan’s nod. “About buying his truck from him the other day and Vince just noses right on in, gives me his opinion on the make and model and my finances, like how the hell do you know about my finances?”

“Don’t start. I’ll go back and break something else on their boat,” Jordan threatened.

That set the two of them to giggling all over again.

They finally got a hold of themselves just as the warning – twenty minutes to the Squashbuckler race - comes over the speakers.

“Will you stay?” Riley asked, and her eyes were so hopeful Jordan couldn’t help herself.

“Gotta stay and see the Teagues get toppled,” she agreed and Riley beamed at her. Jordan rolled her eyes but secretly, it was nice, having someone want her around. She hadn’t been very good company the last few years. It had been difficult keeping friendships going. Not that she and Riley were friends. It was just strangely quiet and lonely once Riley went off to change into costume and head on down to the dock.

Jordan stuck her gloved hands in her pockets and wound her way to the edge of the water.  The sunlight sparkled off the bay in ripples as a breeze kicked up. Closer to the dock happy families waited to cheer on their loved ones, parents with kids on their shoulders, a couple with their hands in each other’s back pockets. She spotted Audrey Parker and Nathan in the crowd, Audrey holding onto Nathan’s arm to balance herself as she stood on her tiptoes to see over the heads of the people in front of them. Nathan said something and she laughed. He smiled at her then, slow and genuine. Jordan ignored the way that made her stomach lurch. She looked away from them, her gaze falling on a trio of high schoolers, their arms around looped casually around each other’s shoulders. Jordan wrenched her gaze away from all those happy, smiling faces and focused on the boats.

Someone jostled her from the side and she turned to snarl but they were gone by the time she did. And then the announcer got on the megaphone declaring the races ready to start. There was a loud cheer from the crowd. The pumpkin painted like superman - captained by Matt Tyler from the hardware store, complete with red cape - got a big roar from the crowd. The prerequisite Spongebob themed pumpkin did well, too. Riley got a decent round of applause as she freakin’ fluttered into her pumpkin in a ridiculous yellow and orange tutu skirt and butterfly wings. Jordan would have to make fun of her for that for the next week at least. There was Stan from the station dressed as Captain Crunch of all things, getting into a pumpkin boat decked out like a warship. Jordan wondered if Nathan was there because Stan was competing or if he was showing Parker the charms of small town living.

Before Jordan could take in all the boats the starting pistol was going off and the squashbucklers took to the sea. The course was set for them to paddle about three hundred feet, round the floating buoys and paddle back to the docks. Paddling a round boat proved to be difficult and those who had added prows quickly took the lead- including the Teagues. Vince in front paddling, Dave in back steering and from where Jordan was standing the tiller seemed to be working just fine as they maneuvered around their floundering companions. The shark boat was spinning on the spot while Winnie the Pooh had tumbled out of the honey pot and was splashing around in the water like bears couldn’t swim. Riley was making dogged progress in her autumn fairy get up.

The Teagues were rounding their buoy, ready for the return journey and Jordan was fuming mad their boat was still in working condition when it happened. Dave said something to Vince and Vince leaned backward to hear it and their newspaper boat toppled backwards, fancy prow and all, rising up and then keeling over like the Titanic itself, dumping the Teagues brothers into the sea. Jordan burst into laughter along with the rest of the crowd.

They surfaced squabbling like two old wet hens and it just made Jordan laugh all the more. Her sides hurt and there were tears in her eyes and she couldn’t stop laughing. People nearby started to give her odd looks so Jordan walked herself off and took a seat on a rock to compose herself.

Ed Moore in his floating Hogwarts pumpkin complete with towers won the race. He was surprisingly agile climbing out despite the wizard’s robe and long, flowing Dumbledore beard. Ed accepted his trophy with the weird speech “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!” but that was Haven for you, she supposed. They’d be weird with or without the Troubles.

Riley took fifth place and she all but bounced up to Jordan. If Jordan hadn’t been Troubled she was sure Riley would have hugged her. She was though, so Riley stopped just out of reach and beamed at Jordan with her dumb wings. And then Jordan smiled at her, warmly. “Congratulations,” she said and found she genuinely meant it.

“Thanks,” Riley answered and for a moment it was almost enough.

That night Jordan drove past Hastings Dock on her way to work the shift she’d traded for this morning and smiled. The last event of the pumpkin fiasco, the carving competition, was almost over. The light turned red and she used the moment to take in the sight. The pumpkins glowed softly, the flickering candlelight illuminating ships and roses, a grinning Slimer, tigers and owls, aliens and even the silhouette of a little mermaid sitting on a rock. Jordan had to grudgingly admit the pumpkins stacked and carved like a T-Rex skeleton was pretty impressive.

It was oddly comforting the way life kept going on, she mused. Jordan had forgotten it had a habit of doing that. People’s lives changed in an instant, one minute you weren’t Troubled the next you were, but life in Haven and everywhere else just kept going on. There were people who still had _normal_ , people who still got to carve pumpkins and worry about silly small town competitions. On any other day Jordan would hate them all for not appreciating what they had. But today, for a little while at least, she’d gotten to join in on that normal.

She’d sat in the sunshine with a friend. It had been… nice.

The light turned green and she drove on.

 


End file.
